On Nov. 16, UNC-Chapel Hill will host its most unusual sporting event of the season: American Indian stickball. The exhibition will involve the Paint Town Stickball Team from Cherokee, N.C., and a club team, the Flying Rats, from the University of Georgia. Jerry Wolfe from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, an expert on traditional stickball and a 2002 N.C. Heritage Award recipient, will accompany the Cherokee players to offer commentary and answer questions. The match will begin at 11 a.m. at the Finley Practice Facility on Mason Farm Road Extension near Finley Golf Course. The game will last about 90 minutes. The public is welcome, and admission is free.
Stickball, the forerunner of modern lacrosse, is an ancient game that southeastern Indians called the "little brother to war." Requiring many of the same skills and rituals as war, stickball historically settled disputes between towns and sometimes tribes.
The game is nowadays played with teams of 10 players, each using two wooden sticks similar to lacrosse sticks. Like the modern version, the object of the game is to score goals with a ball. It is a bruising contact sport, played in bare feet and without pads. More information on traditional stickball can be found on the Flying Rats' Web site at http://www.uga.edu/~toli/home.html.
This event, held as part of the University's celebration of American Indian Heritage Month, is made possible through a grant from the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence Intellectual Life at UNC-Chapel Hill. Other UNC sponsors include the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies; the curriculum in peace, war and defense; the curriculum in American studies; the Research Laboratories of Archaeology; the Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series; the Office of Student Affairs; the Graduate School; the Center for the Study of the American South; and the Carolina Indian Circle.
For more information, contact Theda Perdue at tperdue@email.unc.edu.
Theda Perdue
Professor
History
